Excavating material such as coal, ore, or other minerals from an excavation site, such as an open pit mine, may be accomplished using an excavating machine such as a rope shovel equipped with a digging tool to physically remove material from the ground and to dispense the material to a hauling machine such as a dump truck. The hauling machine transports the material from the excavation site while the excavating machine remains in place to continue excavating material. Therefore, several hauling machines may be required to keep pace with single excavating machine and maintain efficiency of the operation. More recently, in-pit crushing and conveying (“IPCC”) systems have been proposed in which the excavating machine dispenses material into a processing unit referred to as an in-pit crusher that has a funnel-like hopper to receive the dispensed material and a local crushing or grinding unit to pulverize or breakup the material for easier handling. The IPCC is operatively associated with a conveyer that transports the processed material away from the excavation site to a common hauling point. Benefits of the IPCC process include a reduction in the required number of hauling machines and/or the travel distance that the hauling machines must cover, which may be especially advantageous if the hauling machines are otherwise required to travel long, uphill distances to exit the excavation site.
One example of excavating with an IPCC is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,768,579 (“the '579 patent”), which describes an arrangement of a rope shovel operating to dig and dispense material to a nearby IPCC unit which processes the material for transportation on a conveyer away from the excavation site. To facilitate swinging the digging tool of the rope shovel over the hopper on the IPCC, the '579 patent in particular describes a system of position sensors and electronic controllers configured to calculate the ideal path between the rope shovel and the hopper. The system outputs the results as feedback to assist the operator of the rope shovel. The present disclosure is similarly directed to improving an excavation operation utilizing an excavating machine in cooperation with an IPCC configured with at least a first hopper and a second hopper.